Warning: Some parts of this review deal with suicide and one person’s choice on how to deal with it – their approach may not be for everyone.
Perhaps this up-and-coming generation of rockers have finally cracked the nut. How do you radiate the sneer we all love so much in our favorite bands without letting that infect your life? Swagger without being a dick. Whatever the case, the nut’s cracked and the shells lie littered on the ground in the wake of the Fremantle five-piece Grub and their self-titled debut on Wing Sing Records.
The album opens with “Prefrontal Cortex,” and from the beginning lead singer and songwriter Matilda Beales sets the expectation with lyrics like:
“Locked in, but I wanna be calm in my nature/Instead I’m back in my animal, scanning for trouble/ Call me a fuckin’ tornado chaser.”
Stand by — this album runs on themes of anxiety, sobriety, isolation, and cancer treatment. You know, the typical stuff bands like AC/DC might sing about…
For three blistering tracks they romp through their material, Beales purring like an angry Hope Sandoval while the crunchy guitar behind her — flashing shades of Angine de Poitrine — makes it absolutely clear this is an album built to be played at 11. It isn’t until track four, “The Floor,” that the band catches its breath, their sound shifting from garage-punk to something more indie-flavored as Beales turns a private cancer-treatment pep talk into a public anthem for anyone struggling:
“When your insides turn and your body burns/But you learn to live with it/When your skin is ice, try some suicide/Or just learn to live with it”
Coming at it with a military background, I can tell you it’s exactly the type of pep talk I get behind — suck it up, buttercup; no one promised you a rose garden. It’s the honest self-talk most of us level at ourselves in conversations only we can hear.
And perhaps that’s the rub — the swagger is earned, carried by a songwriter who’s walked into some of life’s darkest moments and come through the other side, unapologetic in having survived the journey. Catharsis delivered in the form of vinyl packaging and heavy guitars.
Unapologetic is how you should probably read the whole album. Matilda Beales (vocals, guitar, songwriting), Duncan Strachan and Mitch Macdonald (guitars), Edo Ekic (bass), and Peter Bibby (drums) deliver as solid a debut as any in recent memory. Without question you can hear their named influences — AC/DC, The Peep Tempel, and IDLES.
I prefer my music on vinyl, so I’ve already made my way to the band’s Bandcamp page and ordered a copy — disappointed at my lateness, since the limited editions already gone. Whatever platform you choose, carve out some time for this one in the very near future.
The Six
At 44 seconds into “Prefrontal Cortex,” once the swaggering, chunky guitars have planted their flag, a plaintive, almost sorrowful clean guitar slips in and somehow lends the track real weight. It shows up only there — a thread I wish the band had pulled further, a bit of tension holding the song back from tipping too far into pure swagger. But it does its job: hearing that one fleeting flash of restraint, that maturity, told me this was a band worth sitting with.
Go check them out via their Bandcamp page.
